D&D General Why are we fighting?

[Micah Sweet]

Ok, gaming story time.

We were playing Dungeon of the Mad Mage. On one of the levels (I'm avoiding spoilers here), we met a Drow outpost - the main town of the drow was somewhere else. Now, we went in, crushed the outpost and kept one of them alive. And, when I say crushed, I mean it. I don't think we lost so much as a hit point. Now, my very frightening Paladin of Asmodeus tells our prisoner that we will release her to return to her people. We don't want to fight, but, we will if we have too. Just stay out of our way. We've just proven that you are no match for us, we're not interested in you, just stay out of our way.

So, we do a few things, spend some time doing stuff, and then wander into the drow town (mostly by accident since we were pretty much just aimlessly wandering looking for something else). Of course, the entire town comes out to attack us. Tries to mob us.

The entire fight, I'm saying (both in and out of character), We had zero interest in this fight. This is entirely your fault.

Wound up spending most of an entire session dice rolling our way through the fights.

-----

Now, how I would have handled that is entirely different. The released drow, terrified because we just obliterated all the others with ease, goes back to her people, tells them to give us a wide berth and be really polite if we do happen to venture close.

But, of course that didn't happen. Silly me for forgetting the cardinal rule of D&D which is that you must kill every single thing you meet, otherwise, you're just wasting your time.

I'd argue that it's very much a failure of the DM's imagination if they cannot think of why the defeated bad guys stay defeated and don't monkey's paw every single thing the party does.

Ok, but is every situation like that? Is that scenario even that common? "Punch the tough guy in the nose and he'll leave you alone" doesn't work every time, and not every enemy is one BBEG and a horde of intimidated followers who can be turned away with a threatening gesture or rousing speech.

 

[Micah Sweet]

That is why I like the Influence Action in One D&D along with the default attitude for NPCs. You could work up a set of morale rules from there.

I don't actually care for the way the new edition is planning to codify skills. Feels like they want to force the DMs hand.

 

[Oofta]

I don't actually care for the way the new edition is planning to codify skills. Feels like they want to force the DMs hand.

It's one of things I've been ranking low and will ignore if it's still in the next release. Assuming I switch to the new release of course.

 

[jmartkdr2]

Ok, but is every situation like that? Is that scenario even that common? "Punch the tough guy in the nose and he'll leave you alone" doesn't work every time, and not every enemy is one BBEG and a horde of intimidated followers who can be turned away with a threatening gesture or rousing speech.

If that’s how you dm, that’s why pcs never let anyone live.

If you don’t care, rock on. But if you get annoyed when players kill prisoners, the reason they do so is the alternative is fighting them all over again. Which removes the victory AND means there’ll be another combat that’s even easier, thus boring, and was totally avoidable. Except the dm wants pcs to be unrealistically nice in a world where most npcs are stupidly petty and combative.

 

[Micah Sweet]

If that’s how you dm, that’s why pcs never let anyone live.

If you don’t care, rock on. But if you get annoyed when players kill prisoners, the reason they do so is the alternative is fighting them all over again. Which removes the victory AND means there’ll be another combat that’s even easier, thus boring, and was totally avoidable. Except the dm wants pcs to be unrealistically nice in a world where most npcs are stupidly petty and combative.

So the things I mentioned above that aren't always true, need to be true in order for PCs to not kill everything they see? Is that what you're saying? Because otherwise I don't understand how this is a response to my post.

 

[jmartkdr2]

So the things I mentioned above that aren't always true, need to be true in order for PCs to not kill everything they see? Is that what you're saying? Because otherwise I don't understand how this is a response to my post.

It depends on the impression the payers have of the world - which means you need to start with npcs behaving the way that gets the results you want. You can’t subvert a trope until it’s been well established.

If the first prisoner betrays the party, that’s the last prisoner they’ll ever take.

 

[Thomas Shey]

It's an old issue. I'm reminded of some of the discussions I participated in, ~25 years ago in the USENET newsgroups, particularly rec.games.frp.advocacy. The problems of both PCs and NPCs fighting to the death and never trying to surrender or flee, problems with GMs trying to set up scenarios where the PCs are expected to surrender, and problems with game mechanics that are weak on breaking away and escaping combat. GMs were expected to wing that last, with all the problems of unsatisfactory arbitrariness that involved. Even the pure Gamist guy's answer was that it should be intuitively obvious to everyone when a fleeing group has broken combat - no crunchy mechanics needed there.

Was that Brian Gleichman? If so, he was being a little blase; the issue is when one side wants to flee, and the other side decides its a good time to run them down and not have to deal with them later.

It was a problem with games in general, not just D&D. For PCs fighting to the death, the consensus was that if everyone in the party is still able to fight, then it's too soon to try to run, and if a PC goes down (or is even just slowed by injury) then it's too late to try to run. The right time to run never happens, and no one could come up with a fix for that.

Its an intrinsic problem; usually disengaging makes it easier to be attacked, so even if you're taking a beating disengaging as long as everyone is functional it seems like a bad idea. But as you say, most groups are not leaving someone behind, so...

 

[overgeeked]

It depends on the impression the payers have of the world - which means you need to start with npcs behaving the way that gets the results you want. You can’t subvert a trope until it’s been well established.

If the first prisoner betrays the party, that’s the last prisoner they’ll ever take.

That’s not my experience. If any prisoner ever betrays the PCs ever…that will be the last prisoner the players ever take in any game ever. Same with any general NPC betrayal. Ever have a quest giver betray the PCs. They’ll never trust another one ever again.

 

[Incenjucar]

That’s not my experience. If any prisoner ever betrays the PCs ever…that will be the last prisoner the players ever take in any game ever. Same with any general NPC betrayal. Ever have a quest giver betray the PCs. They’ll never trust another one ever again.

That's when you start leaving giant clues that they just slaughtered a reformed being.

Give them a diary with the last entry, "Today some adventurers showed me the error of my ways. I only hope that, when they release me, I can repay their kindness somehow. Perhaps I can talk my tribe into doing something for them to aid in their quest." etc.

 

[jmartkdr2]

That’s not my experience. If any prisoner ever betrays the PCs ever…that will be the last prisoner the players ever take in any game ever. Same with any general NPC betrayal. Ever have a quest giver betray the PCs. They’ll never trust another one ever again.

Fair point: players bring expectations with them. One dm can make a murderhobo, but it takes years to unlearn that.

 

[overgeeked]

Fair point: players bring expectations with them. One dm can make a murderhobo, but it takes years to unlearn that.

I’d push back on that a bit. I don’t buy that all player behavior is directly the fault of the referee. If players want to play a murderhobo there’s not much the referee can do either way. An NPC betrayal doesn’t cause murderhobos. Players not wanting to engage with the story or the game beyond a “kill things and take their treasure” level is what causes murderhobos.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I’d push back on that a bit. I don’t buy that all player behavior is directly the fault of the referee. If players want to play a murderhobo there’s not much the referee can do either way. An NPC betrayal doesn’t cause murderhobos. Players not wanting to engage with the story or the game beyond a “kill things and take their treasure” level is what causes murderhobos.

I will still maintain a lot of it is taught behavior. I've seen too many players who exhibit too much paranoid behavior for it not to be caused by experience. And its contagious; a player can not have experienced it themselves, but if they've heard of it too often from others they'll start to assume its common.

 

[Vaalingrade]

It's not just taught; it's pop cultural osmosis.

The idea of every NPC you meet being jerk of judas, of any escapee brining hell down on you, of everything in the world trying to kill you like an old arcade game... it's something people 'know' about the game before they get started.

 

[Edgar Ironpelt]

Was that Brian Gleichman? If so, he was being a little blase; the issue is when one side wants to flee, and the other side decides its a good time to run them down and not have to deal with them later.

I believe it was. I didn't remember the name, but I recognize it now that I see it.

But I do remember asking how one can tell when a party conducting a "hit and run" raid has broken contact after the "run" part, and getting that answer.

 

[Lanefan]

Players not wanting to engage with the story or the game beyond a “kill things and take their treasure” level is what causes murderhobos.

Disagree. One can be very engaged with the story and still generally approach it from a "kill 'em all and take their loot" angle.

And I say this from long experience, as unless I'm playing a particularly Good character (which happens, now and then!) that approach is my usual default.

 

[Edgar Ironpelt]

There's a distinction between NPC enemies who become prisoners because they've been non-lethally rendered hors de combat and those who become prisoners because they throw down their weapons and cry "I surrender!"

In the first case, of course the NPCs are going to attempt to escape and/or strike back as soon as they are able to. In the second case, there are many examples of "I surrender, suckers" [see TV Tropes] being presented as a heroic action by the Good Guys in various media, despite it being the war crime of perfidy, so players both expect NPCs to use it, and to use it themselves against NPCs stupid enough to fall for it.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I believe it was. I didn't remember the name, but I recognize it now that I see it.

But I do remember asking how one can tell when a party conducting a "hit and run" raid has broken contact after the "run" part, and getting that answer.

Brian could be like that sometimes (I was probably one of the other two big Gamists on their (along with Bradd Szonze) so he kind of made me roll my eyes when he did things like that).

 

[MGibster]

And this is a positive thing to you?

It's a negative, but if a player flips out over a character's death I tend to fault the player and not the game.

Before the dark age, how many Fantasy stories ended with a Shaggy Dog story of the heroes dead out somewhere, having accomplished nothing?

We're not telling a fantasy story here, we're playing a game. I might take an unusual approach to D&D I guess. In our last campaign, I decided to play a Bard for the first time in memory. If I ever played a Bard before, it was likely back when George Bush, the first one, was in office. The very first game of the campaign, we run into a Giff and my character yells out "You're butt is so big, it counts as full cover for your party," after which he struck me down with a critical hit and I failed my three Death Saves in subsequent rounds because none of my party could reach me. I thought it was hilariously fun.

You can have a perfectly good campaign without death being on the table. I know I have, well, not for D&D, but for other games. But I don't think the campaign is going to be a lot of fun if failure isn't an option.

Also, how friendly is your PCs relationship with the local law? In my experience, most PCs are too independently minded to essentially act as law enforcement, and most law enforcement officials are very leery of vigilantes.

I realize most D&D settings are entirely modern in how the people think, but you've got to make some concessions to make the game fun to play. Adventurers are often hired to take care of problems the locals can't, I don't see why that shouldn't apply to lawbreakers.

 

[Vaalingrade]

It's a negative, but if a player flips out over a character's death I tend to fault the player and not the game.

I'm going to fault the person who clearly relishes it happening.

We're not telling a fantasy story here, we're playing a game.

A cooperative storytelling game.

I might take an unusual approach to D&D I guess. In our last campaign, I decided to play a Bard for the first time in memory. If I ever played a Bard before, it was likely back when George Bush, the first one, was in office. The very first game of the campaign, we run into a Giff and my character yells out "You're butt is so big, it counts as full cover for your party," after which he struck me down with a critical hit and I failed my three Death Saves in subsequent rounds because none of my party could reach me. I thought it was hilariously fun.

The important thing is that you thought it was fun and instigated the situation. That's different from some dude killing your character for the express purpose to tee you off.

You can have a perfectly good campaign without death being on the table. I know I have, well, not for D&D, but for other games. But I don't think the campaign is going to be a lot of fun if failure isn't an option.

Failures can happen without the entire thing being turned into a Shaggy Dog Story. I think this lack of understanding is why some people are so hung up on death as the only stake. As much as they profess to hate 'the video games', they can't comprehend failure without a Game Over.

 

[Edgar Ironpelt]

Its an intrinsic problem; usually disengaging makes it easier to be attacked, so even if you're taking a beating disengaging as long as everyone is functional it seems like a bad idea. But as you say, most groups are not leaving someone behind, so...

My experience is that players are willing to accept rules for "disengage without a last attack to avoid the opponents' last attacks" and "fleeing combat is faster than pursuit, at least in the short to medium turn," as a convention of the game. The hard part is retreating when comrades are slowed or immobile.